How Does Brain Work?

Theories about how the brain works remain a topic of debate. It is agreed, though, that the hippocampus, a part of the brain, is undeniably important for memory. When we experience something, the information is sent via our senses to the hippocampus, where it is processed. Scientists believe that brain cells called neurons first transform the sensory stimuli we experience into images in our immediate memory. Then, these images are sent to the hippocampus and stored temporarily in short-term memory. In the hippocampus, information is organized, and it is during this process that parts of the image of our experience fade away. Finally, certain information is then transferred to long-term memory in a section in the frontal lobe of the brain known as the cerebral cortex. Scientists think this process may happen while we are sleeping, but exactly how the information is transferred from one area of the brain to another is a mystery.

People With Extraordinary Abilities

Fictional stories about people who have extraordinary abilities have always attracted people's attention. One of them is the story of Vera Petrova, who is able to perceive things with different parts of her skin, and through solid walls. One day, she comes into his father's office and puts her hands on the door of a locked safe. Suddenly, she asks her father why he keeps so many old newspapers locked away there. Vera's curious talent is brought to the notice of a scientific research institute and she is given a series of tests by a special commission. During these tests, she manages to read a newspaper through an opaque screen, and then she describes the figures and colors of a picture hidden under a carpet. During all these tests, Vera is blindfolded, and, indeed, except when blindfolded, she lacks the ability to perceive things with her skin. It was also found that although she could perceive things with her fingers this ability ceased the moment her hands were wet.

The Bermuda Triangle

The Bermuda Triangle occupies a disturbing and almost unbelievable place in the world's catalog of unexplained mysteries. More than a hundred planes and ships have vanished in this area into the air since 1945, and more than a thousand lives have been lost, without a single body or even a piece of wreckage from the vanishing planes or ships having been found. Many of the planes concerned have vanished while in normal radio contact with their base until the very moment of their disappearance, while others have radioed the most extraordinary messages, implying that they could not get their instruments to function, that their compasses were spinning, that the sky had turned yellow and hazy on a clear day, and the ocean, which was calm nearby, didn't look right without further clarification of what was wrong.

Opera refers to a dramatic art form originating in Europe in which the emotional content is conveyed to the audience as much through music, both vocal and instrumental, as it is through the lyrics. By contrast, in musical theater, an actor's dramatic performance is primary, and the music plays a lesser role. The drama in opera is presented using the primary elements of theater, such as scenery, costumes, and acting. However, the words of the opera, or libretto, are sung rather than spoken. The singers are accompanied by a musical ensemble ranging from a small instrumental ensemble to a full symphonic orchestra.

Dolphins

Dolphins are regarded as the friendliest creatures in the sea, and stories of them helping drowning sailors have been common since Roman times. The more we learn about dolphins, the more we realize that their society is more complex than people previously imagined. They look after other dolphins when they are ill, care for pregnant mothers, and protect the weakest in the community, as we do. Some scientists have suggested that dolphins have a language but it is much more probable that they communicate with each other without needing words. Could any of these mammals be more intelligent than man? Certainly, the most common argument in favor of man's superiority over them that we can kill them more easily than they can kill us is the least satisfactory. On the contrary, the more we discover about these remarkable creatures, the less we appear superior when we destroy them.

Unsinkable Ship

Naval architects never claim that a ship is unsinkable, but the sinking of the passenger-and-car ferry Estonia in the Baltic surely should have never happened. It was well-designed and carefully maintained. It carried the proper number of lifeboats. It had been thoroughly inspected on the day of its fatal voyage. Yet hours later, the Estonia rolled over and sank in a cold, stormy night. It went down so quickly that most of those on board, caught in their dark, flooding cabins, had no chance to save themselves: Of those who managed to scramble overboard, only 139 survived. The rest died of hypothermia before the rescuers could pluck them from the cold sea. The final death toll amounted to 912 souls. However, there were an unpleasant number of questions about why Estonia sank and why so many survivors were men in the prime of life while most of the dead were women, children and the elderly.

Nuclear Danger

Our demand for electricity is climbing so fast that over the next decade, our generating capacity must increase by a third. Fossil fuels supply nearly three-quarters of this energy. But the smoke expelling coal, gas, and oil-fired plants are also responsible for half of our air pollution. That might be considered as a small price to pay for progress. But there's an alternative, one that produces no smoke and can actually create more fuel than it consumes. In many regions it's even cheaper than coal-fired electricity: nuclear power. It may directly bring danger of radioactivity to the mind, but if other types of power didn't present equal and even worse problems, it would make no sense to consider nuclear power at all. But they do.

Over 200 years ago, English physician Edward Jenner observed that milkmaids stricken with a viral disease called cowpox were rarely victims of a similar disease, smallpox. This observation led to the development of the first vaccine. In an experiment that was to prove a revelation, Jenner took a few drops of fluid from a pustule of a woman who had cowpox and injected the fluid into a healthy young boy who had never had cowpox or smallpox. Six weeks later, Jenner injected the boy with fluid from a smallpox pustule. Miraculously, the boy remained free of the dreaded smallpox.

In those days, a million people died from smallpox each year in Europe alone, most of them children. Those who survived were often left with grim reminders of their ordeals: blindness, deep scars, and deformities. When Jenner laid the foundation for modern vaccines in 1796, he started on a course that would ease the suffering of people around the world for centuries to come. By the beginning of the 20th century, vaccines for rabies, diphtheria, typhoid fever, and plague were in use, in addition to the vaccine for smallpox. By 1980, an updated version of Jenner’s vaccine led to the total eradication of smallpox.

Since Jenner’s time, vaccines have been developed against more than 20 infectious diseases such as influenza, pneumonia, whooping cough, rubella, meningitis, and hepatitis B. Due to tremendous advances in molecular biology, scientists are using novel approaches to develop vaccines against deadly diseases that still plague humankind.

Scientists use vaccines to “trick” the human immune system into producing antibodies or immune cells that protect against the real disease-causing organism. Weakened microbes, killed microbes, inactivated toxins, and purified proteins or polysaccharides derived from microbes are the most common components used in vaccine development strategies. As science advances, researchers are developing even better vaccines.